Bedtime Stories with Draco Malfoy
by Lady Domino
Summary: A one shot which may be extended to a series. Draco Malfoy narrates the wizardly creation myth to his insomniac son.


**Disclaimer: **Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling.

**A/N:**A little one shot I might be adding to in the future. J. K. Rowling offers relatively few hints to wizardly religion so I figured they don't really have a central deity or pantheon of deities as we Muggles do :) However, being wizards they obviously can't rely on scientific explanations for creation so perhaps they do have some sort of myths. Please don't be offended if you're religious and feel your religion is being misused here - I borrowed elements from some religions but most of this is straight from my own imagination :)

* * *

><p><span>The Creation Myth<span>

Summer nights are always problematic for children whose bedtimes are during daylight hours, and Scorpius Malfoy was not exception. Since he had been tucked in by his mother he had visited the bathroom twice, gone for two glasses of water and was now lying on top of his blankets trying to see if he could put his feet behind his head. A knock at his door interrupted him and he scrambled guiltily beneath the blankets as the door opened, admitting his father.

"Shutting your eyes doesn't fool me," his father said, in an amused tone, and Scorpius opened them again as his father sat on the edge of the bed. He was wearing a deep green silk shirt and Scorpius stared a second, always fascinated by how pressed his father looked. Other people's parents always seemed rumpled or crumpled, their clothes a mess, their faces untidy with sloppy splotches of colour. There was something so fresh, so amazingly clear about his father. No part of him ever looked unintentional.

"You're back early," Scorpius muttered. His father laughed.

"Hardly. You're up late, Scorpius."

"Can't sleep." There was an expectant pause and Scorpius pushed on. "Too bright." With a soft whisper his thick velvet curtains slid shut, encasing the room in almost complete darkness. Candlelight from the hall crept around the open door. "Now's too dark." The curtains parted a little, allowing a shaft of evening light to fall across his father's lap. Scorpius hesitated then said, "Too hot." His father laughed again.

"One more word from you and I'll order the elves to give you an ice bath. That'll cool you down wonderfully." Scorpius squirmed.

"Tell me a story. Then I'll sleep." His father paused for a moment.

"I read you all of the Beadle the Bard tales last week, Scorpius."

"Tell me a new one." Again his father hesitated and thought, then he smiled.

"Have I told you the story of our creation?" A murmer in the negative came from Scorpius, so his father pressed on. "I'm talking about the story of the birth of humanity and the divide between wizards like us and the mudbloods." Scorpius lay back and closed his eyes contentedly. His father's voice continued, lulling and gentle.

"Once upon a time, many years ago, a glorious god made men out of clay to keep him company, and gave these men a beautiful country to live in. These men were intelligent and handsome, fashioned after this god, and they could do magic without even needing wands. They were very happy in the country the god had gave him and they were kind and loving to each other. Then a demon saw what the god had made and he was jealous, so he too took handfuls of earth and made a race. But the demon had not the skills of the god and his men were ugly and unintelligent, and they were called the mud-men by the god's people. And these mud-men could not do magic, no matter how hard they tried, because the demon did not have the power to gift it to them.

Although the god's people were kind and generous to the poor mud-men who had no powers, the mud-men were jealous, because they carried within them the demon's bitterness and envy. These mud-men realised that the god visited his people every week in a certain grotto, and they would walk and talk with him. The god would not talk to them. So the mud-men cried out to the demon and they complained of the injustice of their position. The demon was sad that his creations felt so unhappy, and he thought long and hard. Because he was a demon he could only offer advice of the bitter kind, rather than any that would have brought the two races together. He told the mud-men to cut down the grotto of the god's people, and then the god would not visit them. In the dark of the night he showed his mud-men how to make tools – tools which the god's people with their magic had not needed to create. With their new axes the mud-men went out and hacked down all of the trees in the god's grotto.

The next day the god's people saw what had been done and cried out to their creator in anguish. When the god came to the Earth he too saw what had been done to his trees and anger stirred within him. He did not turn the anger on the mud-men but on his own people.

"This is your fault!" he roared. "You were gifted with higher intelligence than the mud-men and many powers, and you have allowed them to do this. You are not worthy of the gifts I have given you."

Then his people fell to their knees and begged for mercy.

"We will kill every mud-man," they said. "We will hunt them down and sacrifice them to you." But the god was not impressed.

"Those mud-men, for all their flaws, have outwitted you," he said angrily. "And so I condemn you to their company forever. You will always live with them, and you will have to hide from them. They hate me and I will make them hate you too. I will make them chase you and shun you."

"If they fight us we will kill them easily," his people answered. "We will wipe the earth of them."

""I shall make them breed faster than you," the god said, "like verminous rats. And every now and then you shall produce one yourselves, a hidden devil in your family. And I shall bind your magic too, because you do not deserve the power I gave you." So saying, he took the splinters of the felled trees of his grotto and cast them across the corners of the Earth, and they grew into new trees. "You will have to fashion sticks form these trees to produce your magic with," the god said. "And cunningly hide magical items within them. You will have to learn how." Then he left his country for the last time, and the stricken people found that they could not perform their magic at will anymore. They were frightened, because until they learnt how to make wands they had no magic to fight the mud-men with their tools.

The mud-men called to the demon and told him what had been done, and they thanked him for his help in defeating their enemies. Then the demon sighed and shook his head.

"I did not make you to be the destroyers of the god's people. I wanted you to live beside them, and I gave you tools so that you could deprive them of their god and be equals. But their god has punished them in ways I did not foresee, and now they will wither and fall." The mud-men cheered at this and it saddened the demon further, because he did not desire the end of the god's people, and he did not like how warlike and violent his mud-men were. Then, unbeknownst to the mud-men, the god appeared beside him and gave him a small handful of the clay with which he had created his people. The demon took that clay and he breathed it into the mud-men's faces, so that every once in a while it would lead to a child being born to them with the powers of the god's people.

Then the demon bid his mud-men farewell, and gifted them with fire before he left. He flew across the country to where the cold and miserable god's people sat and shivered in the dark and blew sparks into their hearths, so that they too had fire. Then he felt he had done what he could and retired back to his home."

Draco Malfoy paused as a small snore escaped his son. He smiled affectionately and stroked the boy's silvery hair back from his fringe. His wife Lysistrata had told him Scorpius had been making stones levitate earlier today, and his parental pride had known no bounds. He wanted sometimes to shout to the whole world that he, Draco Malfoy, had produced perfection, a perfect Malfoy with blooming magical talent and exquisite features.

"We're free of the mud taint, you and I," he said very quietly to his sleeping son. "And we've got to keep it that way. There aren't enough of us left to sacrifice what we have." Then he leant forward, gently kissed Scorpius' forehead and left the room.


End file.
